SHOUT me a beer. Good on ya, mate.

60 Ways To Know You’re Almost 60

(Yes, I know there are formatting problems. I’m almost 60. I’m allowed.)

You never pull anything out of your pocket without Panadol falling out

You try to use the same *cup all day so that you don’t have to reach up into the cabinet and feel that hot-10-penny-nail-jabbing-into-your-shoulder-socket feeling

You become the ultimate Christian hypocrite when you start wildly boogeying to the Stones, but then you think about what their lyrics actually say

You know there are not many better things on Earth than watching a 2-year-old chase a pigeon in the park

You find one day that you are wearing a shirt, at work, around important people. that has the kind of wide stripes that went out with the Rat Pack

You had at least one “hippyish” item destroyed by a parent who went completely mental

You realize that, right now, your kids or nieces and nephews have jobs that are way more important than yours

You much prefer Facebooking about Shih-Tzus and cats than talking about work or politics

You don’t go a day without praying for someone’s intentions, solicited or not

When you wake up in the morning, it is a miracle if you can get to the bathroom without a cramp or stabbing pain or brain aneurysm

When you were little, you and your cousins got up to mischief that no one, to this day, knows about

When a Facebook friend mentions watching Johnny Carson reruns. for the next 10 minutes, you are laughing about the Carson clips airing in your head

You have not bothered to properly get the last few back-up ‘dings’ in your car repaired because, really, what’s the point

The most analytical you get these days is when you and your child watch the latest Star Wars or Avengers movie, and you really zoom in looking for plot holes

Every time you see a Facebook mention of a soldier who has died or a child undergoing chemo, you pray for them; you really pray

You get up from your computer and start walking down the hall, and everything looks blurry, so you wonder if you are having a heart attack, but then you realize you’re still wearing your computer glasses

When you want to put on old Norman TBT photo on Facebook, and you realize there aren’t many in your family because film was expensive

You remember the story about Narcissus, and you wonder whether this ‘selfie’ thing is a very bad deal

You hear an old song by the Stones or Hendrix or Led Zep, so you CRANK IT UP, and then you wonder how you ever made it home alive from **parties

The thought of winning the billion-dollar lottery scares you to death because you have personally seen how love of money truly is the root of all evil

You have recently opened a kitchen drawer, removed a utensil, and scratched an area of your old body that you don’t talk about

When you see young lovers out in public, and your mind wanders, it usually grabs hold of a memory from a time when you were below the age of consent

Pretty much every major new invention or government policy that you read about reminds you of George Orwell’s ‘1984’

You still have a phone/fax machine on your desk even though the last fax you received was during the Bush Administration

You see a guy driving down the road in a mint condition 1966 G.T.O. and you immediately want to be his best friend or kill him and steal his car.

You need to hear a baby laugh every day, just to get you through the stuff, so you’ve watched this clip of Laughing Quadruplets about a hundred times

You have figured out that vinegar and baking soda will clean or cure pretty much anything, and you wonder why you need all the crap in your cabinets

You also wonder why stores don’t carry ‘fat guy’/’fat gal’ pants like they used to, back when you didn’t need them

Other than your kids being born, your best memories are simple, and almost always involve laughing with old friends

You realize that you are way closer to your death than your birth, and that’s OK

Most of the major dental work you had in your 30’s is now falling to bits

You realize that a John Wayne cowboy movie and a stiff drink with a really old Norman High School friend will fix any damn thing

There are at least three times that you could have gotten really rich if you’d taken a moderate financial gamble, and that really annoys you

Your new laptop comes with built-in software capable of landing a man on Mars, but you mainly use it to search for stuff that’s lost in your computer

When you go to the mall, you always park in the same area. Always. Because, otherwise, you would never find your car. Never.

The Groucho Marx glasses that you bought for 79 cents were the best single investment you ever made

37. You have OU jerseys that predate Barry Switzer.

38. If you had a dollar for every time someone in your family said, “if I had a dollar for every time…” you’d be rich

39. You are very clear about Saturday Night Live: there’s Belushi, Aykroyd, Murray, Gilda and Lilly, then a lump of ***everybody else

40. The only way you are ever going to lose 10 pounds is if tacos or DQ Blizzards somehow metabolize fat and scar tissue

41. About 20 years ago, you realized that elected officials in Washington, D.C. were not smarter than you, they were jut less ethical

42. You are pretty sure that if a man, or woman, cannot ride a horse, they should not be President

43. You or your spouse have had at least one operation that cost more than the house you grew up in

44. You know that Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters were really great at ad-libbing, but, truly, nobody was as good as KOCO’s Ho-Ho and Pokey

45. And, speaking of brilliant children’s programming, WKY TV’s Foreman Scotty and Xavier T. Willard were the best rootin-tootin’ cowboys of ****all time

46. You would love to go into the garage, find an old tire tool, and then wrap it around the head of the guy who said “60 is the new 40”

47. You’d then bend it over Jerry Jones’ big, fat head, just because

48. You are almost 60 if you’re a man who has at least one scar from the time:

… you pushed the neighbors normally good-natured dog too far, like maybe hitting her repeatedly with a rope because you were trying to be a cowboy and she simply refused to stampede

… opening a can of beans with your Dad’s U.S. Military issue can opener (just to see if you could do it which, turns out, you could but not without serious blood loss)

… pinched the fire out of your leg, arm or belly when you put the end stretcher board onto your Dad’s U.S. Navy issue cot

… saying once to often to your little brother, “I daaaaare you to throw that fork a me.””

50. You want to throw your computer RIGHT INTO THE DUCK POND when you write something on your blog late at night, and technology and formatting get all bitchy

51. You have come to accept that you will never be able to properly back a trailer or use Excel

52. You remember baby chicks at Easter that were dyed all different colors, and they were cute, not something you feel compelled to report to the FBI

53. At least once a month, you would give just about anything to have a little more time with your Mom

54. You wonder whether your kids would have benefited from having their mouths washed out with soap, at least once

55. You spent hours and hours looking through the glass viewfinder of your Dad’s Brownie Instamatic camera, and taking thousands of no-film photos of your pets and siblings (extra points if they were in the bathroom)

56. Your wife or husband is right this minute wearing the exact same glasses that your aunt/uncle wore in 1966

57. Your chest constricts and you can’t breath properly when you hear the theme from the *****The Twilight Zone

58. You frequently watched black-and-white TV shows in the bedroom, and at least one brother or sister had to hold the rabbit ears wrapped with aluminum foil just so

59. You believe that 70- or 80- or 90-year-old people must be tough as a boot full of barb wire, because their bodies must hurt like crap, since yours sure does

60. And, finally, you know you are almost 60 when you’re no longer embarrassed by those times when you open your mouth and your Mom comes out; in fact, those moments really make you smile.